COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Athletic High School Association is committed to giving some schools the opportunity to participate in fall sports next spring; however, interim CHIEF executive Bob Goldring said Wednesday that he did not offer a tournament option.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Tuesday afternoon that all sports can continue their scheduled fall seasons with the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, he also added that schools that choose not to participate in fall sports due to the pandemic, meaning the school did not participate in fall sports in the current season, will have the opportunity to play sports in the spring.
RELATED: Join the Facebook group of the best school sports in the Cincinnati area
Several Cuyahoga County superintendents have signed a petition calling for the seasons to be changed in the spring, Cleveland.com reported Monday.
Goldring said most members are moving forward with athletics this fall.
“Right now, while I’m sitting here today, I’d say there wouldn’t be a tournament option for our schools in the spring for fall sports,” Goldring said at a state media consultation Wednesday afternoon. “But, again, we want to paint on those details. That doesn’t mean if we’re getting this far in the existing fall season and we’re standing up like we did last winter and we might not have the spring seasons, we’ll actually do it with some kind of mini-season after the first of the year for our schools to compete.”
Cincinnati Public Schools has suspended their athletics systems until a re-evaluation of the calendar on September 14.
Middletown is in the first phase of vocational education for its fall sports. Middletown said last week that its athletics and boxing season is still suspended.
Goldring said the OHSAA Board of Directors would discuss scenarios for schools that chose not to participate in the fall in a continuing consultation on August 27.
“I think the safest thing to say is that we’re committed to offering some opportunity to fall sports that don’t participate this fall to compete one way or another in the spring and have a window for them,” Goldring said. “But what seems uns decided at this stage.”
Goldring said Wednesday afternoon at 1 p.m. that the Ohio Department of Health’s order related to the best school sports was not over, as he knew.
OHSAA’s senior communications director Tim Stried said Wednesday afternoon that OHSAA had won an official message about spectator capacity limits for fall sporting events.
Goldring indicated that capacity figures for fall sporting events will be based on permanent seating at a facility. He told the media that there is still nothing official.
DeWine said Tuesday that the concentrate will be in limited capacity, and that families and those who enjoy will be preferred to see their student-athletes compete.
Football and box hockey seasons start on Friday. The football season starts next week. Football can lead a scrum on Friday or Saturday.
There will be a normal six-week season for Array followed by the playoffs in October. The state finals are scheduled to end on November 21.
Goldring said it was inopportune to speculate on the location of this season’s state football finals. Possibly, one option would be smaller college sites or the sites of the best schools.
The state finals have been held at the Tom Benson Hall of Fame in Canton for more than 3 seasons (2017-19). OHSAA has announced a venue for this season.
“I think it’s to say that the chances of us being in a place for all of our championships probably aren’t very high right now,” Goldring said.
OhSAA has 815 top member schools and 760 schools in grades 7 through 8 for the next school year 2020-2021.
OhSAA represents more than 350,000 academics in 26 sanctioned sports: thirteen for boys and thirteen for girls.